Theological Trends THE ‘CATHOLIC CHURCH’ SUBSISTS IN THE ‘CATHOLIC CHURCH’ Peter Knauer HE EIGHTH PARAGRAPH OF Vatican II’s Constitution on the T Church, Lumen gentium, speaks of the Church founded by Christ: This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd (John 21:17), and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority (see Matthew 28:18-19), which He erected for all ages as ‘the pillar and mainstay of the truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. If you read this text as a whole, putting together the beginning of the first sentence with the beginning of the second, it seems to be saying something very odd indeed: the ‘Catholic Church’ referred to in the Creed subsists in the ‘Catholic Church’.1 It can only be making sense if ‘Catholic Church’ is being used in two different senses. What, then, does ‘Catholic Church’ mean in each case? And which version is intended when Unitatis redintegratio, the Council’s decree on ecumenism, speaks about people other than Catholics, and says that ‘it is only through Christ’s Catholic Church, which is “the all-embracing 1 It is worth noting that this formulation was taken over verbatim into the Code of Canon Law (204.2). The Way, 45/3 (July 2006), 79-93 80 Peter Knauer means of salvation”, that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation’? (n.3) In the original draft for Lumen gentium distributed to the Council Fathers on 23 November 1962, what is now paragraph 8 had run as follows: The sacred synod thus teaches and solemnly proclaims that there is only the one true Church of Jesus Christ: the one which we celebrate in the Creed as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church; the one which the Saviour won for himself on the Cross, and bound to himself as body to head, bride to bridegroom, the one which he entrusted after his resurrection to St Peter and his Successors, who are the Roman Pontiffs, to be governed. And therefore it is only the Roman Catholic Church that is rightly called Church.2 This preliminary draft seems to envisage a full identification of the Roman Catholic Church with the Church of Christ that is named in the Creed. And at the same time it is disputed that other Christian communities can rightly call themselves Churches at all. This draft was debated and revised. By the time the final text first appeared on 3 July 1964, a number of changes had occurred. The most significant and striking of these was the replacement of the word ‘is [est]’ with ‘subsists in [subsistit in]’. No longer does the text simply identify the Church of the Creed with the Church of Rome; instead the Church of the Creed ‘subsists in’ the Church of Rome. The report on the draft that was submitted to the Council Fathers included an explanatory comment: the change had been introduced so that the expression ‘better correspond to the affirmation that ecclesial elements are also present [adsunt] elsewhere’. There was some opposition and discussion, but the text was finally accepted. ‘Subsistit in’ What exactly does subsistit in mean? We need to be clear from the outset that there is no question of the Church we profess in the Creed being simply an ‘idea’ which is then subsequently ‘made real’, or concretised. This Church is from the outset a reality which is 2 Acta synodalia sacrosancti concilii oecumenici Vaticani secundi,1.4.15. The ‘Catholic Church' Subsists in the ‘Catholic Church’ 81 ‘constituted and ordered as a society in this world’; and it is that already constituted, ordered society which subsequently ‘subsists in’ the Roman Catholic Church. The final text ascribes this visibility, this concreteness on earth to the Church before it goes on to say that this Church of Christ subsists in the Church bound to the Pope. In the text of Lumen gentium as a whole, there are two formulations that seem roughly equivalent to subsistit in. In paragraph 26, we read This Church of Christ is truly present in [vere adest in] all legitimate local congregations of the faithful which, united with their pastors, are themselves called Churches in the New Testament. This suggests that ‘subsists in’ may also simply mean ‘is really present in’: the Church designated in the Creed as Catholic is really present in the Roman Catholic Church.3 The other similar passage in Lumen gentium comes at the beginning of paragraph 23: The individual bishops … are the visible principle and foundation of unity in their particular Churches, fashioned after the model of the universal Church. In these and of these exists the one and unique Catholic Church.4 ‘Particular Churches’ (ecclesiae particulares) is a technical term which needs to be understood carefully. It does not mean ‘Churches which are part of a (larger) Church’. We might be tempted to think of the universal Church as a composite reality, the sum of its many different constituent parts. But this is not the way the matter is being understood here. Particularis means ‘individual’ or ‘distinct’. When a ring is made out of gold, this does not mean that the gold is a part of the ring. There exists the one Church of Jesus Christ, but only in the sense that it consists of many ‘individual Churches’. But this is not the 3 The report which accompanied the draft rather confirms this interpretation: ‘ The Church is one single reality, and here on earth she is present [adest in] the Catholic Church, even if ecclesial elements are also to be found outside her’ (Acta synodalia sacrosancti concilii oecumenici Vaticani secundi, 3. 1. 176) 4 … in quibus et ex quibus una et unica ecclesia catholica existit—translation borrowed from Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, edited by Norman Tanner (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990)—the official Vatican translation, ‘comes into being’, is misleading. German writers are equally misleading when they render ecclesia particularis as Teilkirche—‘part-Church’; they should say Einzelkirche—‘individual Church’. 82 Peter Knauer A Church in Canada same thing as saying that it is a composite, with many different Churches as parts. To get the matter right, one must say that the Church of Christ is made up of many individual Churches, in such a way that it is fully present in all of them. Subsistit in also occurs at two points in Unitatis redintegratio, Vatican II’s ecumenism decree. In paragraph 4, we read: … when the obstacles to perfect ecclesiastical communion have been gradually overcome, all Christians will at last, in a common celebration of the Eucharist, be gathered into the one and only Church in that unity which Christ bestowed on his Church from the beginning. We believe that this unity subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose [quamque inamissibilem in Ecclesia Catholica subsistere credimus], and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time. The other passage comes in paragraph 13, where the talk is of different communions separated from the Roman See: ‘Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist [in quibus The ‘Catholic Church' Subsists in the ‘Catholic Church’ 83 traditiones et structurae Catholicae ex parte subsistere pergunt], the Anglican Communion occupies a special place’. Putting these passages together, it appears that subsistit in can well be translated by ‘is present in’, provided, perhaps, that we add an additional nuance to the effect that the true presence in question is something essential, constitutive. ‘Catholic’ However, when est was replaced by subsistit in, this change affected also the words in the immediate context. The fact that many of the Council Fathers may not have been fully aware of this does not affect the point. A statement can imply more than what its author consciously and explicitly intended.5 When the first draft said that the Church designated as Catholic in the Creed was straightforwardly the Roman Catholic Church, then the two realities were being equated, and no distinction at all was being made between them. But once people started to say that the Catholic Church subsisted in the Catholic Church, then this could only make sense if ‘Catholic Church’ now had two different meanings. The final formula is logically possible only if the two uses of ‘Catholic Church’ no longer have quite the same sense. The point stands, whatever the authors were thinking at the time, and whatever they might have been explicitly intending. ‘Catholic Church’ is evidently being used here in two different senses, a ‘transcendental’ one and then a ‘categorial’ one. We begin by talking about the Church as such, the Church in some kind of absolute sense, ‘the universal Church’. Then we go on to talk about a ‘particular Church’. The universal Church which is designated as Catholic in the Creed is fully present in the particular Church that is led by the Pope and by the bishops who are in communion with him. But then this Roman Catholic Church is no longer the universal Church. Given that subsistit in has replaced est, the Roman Catholic Church can be 5 A German example: when the German Basic Law was formulated in 1949, the authors wrote that everyone was to have a right to the ‘free development’ of their personality (Article 2).